(I’m reading a list of patron saints on the Internet, and chatting about it over text with my mom. A little while before this, I’d mentioned the fact that out of four patron saints of pregnancy, three are male.)
Me: “THERE’S A PATRON SAINT OF LUMBERJACKS! MY LIFE IS COMPLETE!”
Mom: “YAY!”
Me: “HE EVEN HAS A FLUFFY BEARD!”
Mom: “OF COURSE HE DOES; HOW COULD HE NOT?”
Mom: “Actually, after the pregnancy-saint talk, I want the patron saint of lumberjacks to be a super-dainty gay man.”
Me: “Actually, yes, please. That’s the only thing that would be better than this.”
(I’m sitting on the couch while my two-year-old son wanders around like always, playing with his toys and talking to himself in his limited vocabulary. My mother-in-law is sitting on the couch next to me, and she is known for dozing off at the drop of a hat, and she has done so in the ten seconds that it took my son to wander into the next room and back.)
Son: “Nan Nan?”
Me: “She’s sleeping.”
Son: “Nan Nan sleeping?”
Me: “That’s right.”
Son: *walks up to my mother-in-law, slaps her leg, and shouts* “Wake up, Nan Nan!”
Mother-In-Law: “Wah! What is it?”
Son: *holds finger up to mouth* “Shh! Nan Nan sleeping!”
(And he then wandered off back into the other room. He’s my favourite.)
(I am in a grocery self-scan queue behind an older woman and a younger woman — mother and daughter. The daughter is trying to explain to the mother how self-scanning works.)
Daughter: *earnestly* “Now you have to find the barcode on the box. It’s usually on the top, or the bottom, or one of the sides.”
(Very helpful…)
(I have always been clumsy and I sometimes lack common sense; I don’t think before I do. At age 19, I want to move out on my own since I have the money. My parents say okay, but they basically handle a lot of the setting up and so on. Once I move, they continue to check in all the time, taking care of things. Soon, the air conditioner breaks. A week later, they come over to check and help me buy a new one.)
Dad: “So, let’s measure the space, and let’s have a look at buying one that fits.”
Me: “No need. I already have one.”
Dad: “Oh, you bought one yourself already? Wow.”
Mom: “Well, let’s see it.”
Me: “Surprise! Here it is.”
Dad: *seeing the old air conditioner exactly as it was* “I thought you said you got a new air conditioner.”
Me: *points to container on the floor with a fan and pipe sticking out*
Dad: “What’s that?”
Me: “My air conditioner. I made it, with help from the Internet.”
(My parents stopped trying to check in on me so often and let me handle things on my own more. I haven’t yet made anything else similar after that, though. I did eventually get an actual air conditioner because I was clumsy enough to spill and slip on icy water.)
(I’ve just walked in to start my shift at a restaurant, and as I’m tilling in to my register, I overhear a mother and her young daughter talking.)
Daughter: “Why do we have to wait for our pizza?”
Mom: “They have to make it from scratch.”
Daughter: “That shouldn’t take so long!”
Mom: “It does! I made you from scratch!”
